All the king's horses and all the king's men had a problem with Humpty Dumpty. Putting him together. It's the same with the Church as we begin Unity Week. Since the 1920s the branches of the Christian Church have set aside a week to pray that they might come together. The trouble is that they have never known what being together is like.

To imagine that there was a golden age when the Church was united is nonsense; even the first disciples argued among themselves as to who would be the greatest in the coming kingdom. They felt the lash of the Lord's tongue. St Paul, in one of the earliest Christian writings (Corinthians 2) writes about the divisions in the Church.

Various councils in early days could only produce an unsteady unity which had to be held together by strict discipline. Those who strayed from or challenged the official authority were summarily dealt with. So is a broken Church the best we can expect today? Few would challenge the need for unity among Christians. It would be wonderful if we could speak with a united voice.

Occasionally we hear of conversations taking place between Church leaders and theologians. They even produce statements, even documents, but they appear far above street level and show little sign of delivering anything useful.

The best signs of Christian unity come about when members of various churches are brought together on some project. This may be a religious service, social event or campaigning together. In the 1920s, the Abbe Paul Couturier, a French priest known as the Apostle of Unity, said: "Church unity will come together through love, and you can't really love anyone without meeting them." Projects provide meeting places where opinions can be exchanged.

Most people expect a united Church one day, but not during their lifetime. Strange to say, the ecumenical movement is slowly nudging us together. One wise old priest said to me: "The forms of worship in the mainstream churches are gradually taking on the same shape. I fully expect that one day the various churches will waken up and find themselves all doing the same things, worshipping, working and praying in the same way. Then they will ask themselves: `What's keeping us apart?' I think unity is beginning to happen even now."

GOLDEN TAPESTRY

Hexham Abbey has held many inspiring exhibitions, and arriving today for a month-long visit is the Golden Tapestry produced for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. This is inspiring for three reasons. First, its very size; the tapestry is made up of 144 panels, each a metre square. Each panel was produced by a school somewhere in the Commonwealth.Then it is colourful. Each school designed an embroidered panel to express local ideas in style and material. And it is also a success story; displayed together various schools from across the Commonwealth have formed partnership links.